ICM 1/35th Bergepanther With German Tank Crew By Tracy Sullivan

Research

While getting ready to build this kit, I started with research about the Bergepanther. I found that in March, 1943, it was decided that the German's needed to produce a recovery and repair vehicle for distressed armor vehicles. They then produced a recovery version of a Panther Ausf Ds. They used Ausf Ds that had been returned for repairs.

There were various modifications made during production of the Bergepanther. The first prototype was turretless. It was armed with a 20mm KWK 38 L/55 and later with twin 7.9mm MG34s or MG42s. It was fitted with 1.5 ton lifting crane and other recovery and repair equipment. The crew consisted of a commander, driver and a mechanic.

Some of the Bergepanthers had their recovery equipment removed and they were modified to carry ammunition designated to be a Munitionspanzer Panther. The Bergepanther was the best recovery vehicle used in World War II. Some of the Bergepanthers were captured by the French army and the French actually used them until the 1950's.

The Kit

When I first opened up this kit I wasn't sure what to expect. I was not familiar with ICM, so I didn't know what kind of quality I was dealing with. I was surprised once I opened the kit, I was impressed with the quality. I would even rank it up there almost next to Tamiya.

The first thing that I noticed was that the MG was the same quality as Tamiya's. The upper and lower haul have excellent detail. The road wheels have great detail, without any mold marks - these are great. For the most part there is not a lot of clean-up that needs to be done to the model. There isn't allot of flashing on the kit. One thing that really sticks out, the antenna's are molded so that the wing nuts at the bottom are molded on them as well. They are excellent looking. The crane set up has little clean up. This kit is done with great quality.

The one thing that I can recommend for this kit is different tracks. The reason that I say that is the tracks could have been done with a little more detail. Other than that they are all right.

Conclusion

Thanks to Testors for the review kit.